Iacta

“It Is Thrown”

Iacta is a dice based Trading Card Game. The main goal of the game is to outscore your opponent by the time one player has run out of cards. You score by putting dice into one of your three Registers, which are areas with six slots for dice, and then “Flushing” them from those Registers in combinations, such as trios (three dice of the same kind) or runs (sets of dice with consecutive values).

You pay for your cards with dice as well, from an area called the Reserve, which can keep a maximum of three dice between turns.

Setup

Both players start with an empty board (Registers, Reserve, Discard Pile, Backline) and 0 banked points.

Randomly decide who takes the first turn using a mutually agreed upon method, such as whoever rolls the highest sum of two dice.

Each player draws a starting hand of 5 cards. (Optional Mulligan: Set aside up to 3 cards face-down, draw that many, and shuffle the set-aside cards back into their deck. Players must mulligan or refuse to mulligan in turn order).

Turn Structure

Each turn consists of three distinct phases:

Phase 1: Maintenance

Draw 2 cards from your deck.
If you have more than 5 cards, discard down to 5 unless it is your first turn.
If you begin your turn with more than 3 dice in your Reserve, return the excess to the Supply (a shared pool of dice) until exactly 3 remain.

Phase 2: Play

During your Play Phase, you may make up to two variable actions and up to two card play actions in any order. You may not make the same variable action more than once per turn. (Your first Set action in a turn ignores this rule, and also does not cost a variable action.)

During the first turn of the first player, that player may not make any card play actions.

Card Play Action

Play a Fast card from your hand, or play a face-down, straightened Slow Event from your Backline.

Variable Actions

Roll: Roll 3 dice from the supply. You may slot up to 2 of the rolled dice into any of your open Register slots. Move the remaining unslotted dice into your Reserve.
Prune: Remove 1 die from any of your Registers and discard it to the general supply.
Cycle: Discard 1 card from your hand, then draw 1 card.
Set: Place any 1 card from your hand face-down and turned 45 degrees into an open Backline slot, ignoring its costs. Your Backline is an area made of five slots, which may each hold one set card. You may look at your own set cards at any time.
Retrieve: Return 1 of your face-down Backline cards to your hand.
Deploy: Reveal a face-down perpetual card in your Backline. Pay its dice cost and flip it face-up to activate it.
Insert: Take a die from your reserve, place it into one of your registers.
Flush (Costs 2 Variable actions): Choose 1 Register. Flush it (Score the dice in that register, taking into account both combos and the face value of the dice, then return them to the supply. The score equals the Sum of the dice + any applicable Combo Bonus. Every die in the Register must be part of the combo. If there are dice that don't fit the pattern, you only score the sum of the dice with no combo bonus.)

Phase 3: Pass

Turn any angled backline cards to be straight up and down. Declare the end of your turn. Pass priority to the opponent next in the turn order. They begin their turn in the Maintenance phase.

Playing Cards

To play or deploy a card, you must pay its costs. Aside from additional costs, written on the card, that means paying its Dice Cost. For each die in a card’s Dice Cost, you must take one die from your Reserve and return it to the Supply. If you overpay for a die in a card’s Dice Cost, you still return the entire value of that die to the Supply.

There are four types of dice you will see in a dice cost.

Thresholds: eg. [4+] (4, 5, or 6), [-2] (1 or 2).

Parity: [ODD] (1,3,5), [EVN] (2,4,6).

Exact: eg. [3] (Must be a 3).

Free: [X] Cost 0 dice.

The Effect Resolution Area (ERA)

The ERA is a shared physical space in the center of the table where cards, abilities, and actions wait to occur.

Whenever an action is taken, a card is played, or a Trap/ability triggers:

Declare & Pay: Announce the action, make any choices it requires, and pay its dice costs. If it's a card, place it into the ERA.

Responses: Before it happens, any player may respond with a ready Trap or activated ability of a card. Place each responding card or effect directly on top of the cards in ERA.

Resolution: Once no one wants to add any more responses, the cards and effects in the ERA occur from top to bottom (most recently declared to oldest).

Cardless Actions: If the initial declared action has no card (such as a Roll or Flush), resolve all responding cards and effects in the ERA first. Once the ERA is empty, perform that action. If there are cardless actions in the middle of the chain of resolution (such as an ability from a Perpetual card), you must remember them and perform them as they come up.

Card Classes & Speeds

There are three classes of cards:

Events: One-time effects. Once resolved, they are sent to the discard pile.

Perpetuals: Cards that stay in your Backline to provide passive bonuses or activated abilities.

Traps: Cards that disrupt your opponent. Traps must be Set face-down first, and can only be triggered on a later turn when their condition is met.

Fast vs. Slow:

Fast cards can be played directly from your hand during your turn.

Slow cards cannot be played from hand. You must first use a Set action to place them face-down in your Backline (turned 45°). Once a Slow card straightens on a future turn, you may spend a Card Play action to play it (if it's an Event) or a Deploy action to reveal it (if it's a Perpetual).

How to Win

If any player ends their turn with an empty deck and hand (or their deck has been empty for 3 turns), the final round finishes. Each player then Flushes and scores all remaining dice in their three Registers one by one, still counting combos and the effects of face-up cards. The player with the highest total banked score wins. (Ties are broken by a 2d6 roll-off).

If at any moment any player’s three Registers collectively contain exactly three 1s, three 2s, three 3s, three 4s, three 5s, and three 6s (all 18 slots filled), they may shout “Iacta!” to win the game immediately.

Building a Deck

To build a deck, take between forty and sixty Iacta cards that meet the following restrictions:

Your deck must not have more than four of any one card name.

Outside of Neutral cards, you may only have cards from any two syndicates in your deck. One, your Main Syndicate, must be a Major syndicate. The other, your Splash syndicate, may be Major or Minor. (Syndicates are marked by abbreviation in the top right of an Iacta card.)

You may include any number of cards from your Main Syndicate in your deck, and up to one card from your Splash Syndicate in your deck for every five cards you have in your deck total.

Scoring Combinations

Pattern	Requirement	Die Count	Bonus Points	Example
Minor Run	3 consecutive values	3	+5	[2, 3, 4]
Major Run	4 consecutive values	4	+10	[1, 2, 3, 4]
Deep Run	5 consecutive values	5	+18	[2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Sigil	Exactly 1 through 6	6	+40	[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Trio	3 matching values	3	+5	[4, 4, 4]
Quad	4 matching values	4	+12	[5, 5, 5, 5]
Quint	5 matching values	5	+22	[5, 5, 5, 5, 5]
Hexa	6 matching values	6	+40	[6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6]
Full House	One Trio + One Pair	5	+15	[4, 4, 4, 2, 2]
Dual Trio	Two distinct Trios	6	+25	[6, 6, 6, 1, 1, 1]
Three Pair	Three distinct Pairs	6	+20	[2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5]